Old School

Tobias Wolff’s novel Old School was published in 2003. It is a work of literary fiction that can also be considered a roman à clef, as it is a thinly veiled account of Wolff’s own experience in prep school. Old School was a finalist for the 2004 Pen/Faulkner Award and the National Book Critics Circle Prize for Fiction.

Plot Summary

Old School follows the unnamed narrator’s plight at a prestigious New England prep school in the early 1960s. Though his friends largely come from wealthy families, he is a scholarship student with a working-class background. Along with the rest of his social circle, the narrator wants to be a writer. Well-known authors periodically visit his school, and before each visit, a contest is held in which students submit work in the author’s genre. The author selects one winner. The prize includes publication in the school’s newspaper and a private audience with the visiting writer.

Robert Frost is the first to come to campus. Prior to his arrival, the narrator considers his three main competitors in the contest. First, there is George Kellogg, who is the editor of their school’s literary magazine, Troubadour. The next contender is the narrator’s roommate, Bill White, whom the narrator considers to be a strong poet with a good chance of winning. Finally, there is Purcell, who is the harshest critic at their editorial meetings for Troubadour. The narrator drafts a poem that is hard to write because it speaks to his difficult family situation: His mother has died, and his father remains consumed by grief. George wins the Frost contest with a poem he wrote as an homage to Frost, but which Frost reads as satire.

The next visiting writer is Ayn Rand. Many faculty members are upset by this choice because they see Rand more as a conservative ideologue than as a literary stylist. The narrator is initially skeptical of her work but becomes captivated when he reads The Fountainhead. He mimics her ruggedly individualistic characters and re-reads the novel several times. He then falls ill and is unable to submit a story for the Rand contest, but he is present when Rand takes questions from students and faculty. She is arrogant and insulting toward anyone who exhibits weakness. The narrator is turned off by her harsh demeanor and comes to see her work as unrealistic. He instead turns his obsession to Hemingway.

There is great excitement on campus upon the announcement of the next visiting writer: Hemingway. The night before the contest deadline, the narrator is browsing an old copy of a literary magazine produced by a nearby girls’ school and becomes enthralled by a short story called “Summer Dance.” This story, he believes, truthfully tells his own lived experience. He transcribes it, only changing small details, and submits it as his own. The narrator wins the contest, but he is soon summoned to the dean’s office and expelled for plagiarizing.

Instead of taking the train home to Seattle, the narrator goes to New York and gets a job as a busboy. Over the next three years he works various jobs before joining the army. While enlisted, he finds a copy of the newspaper in which his plagiarized story appeared and decides to write an apology to the story’s actual author, Susan Friedman. They exchange correspondence and then meet for dinner. She considers his plagiarism to be a clever prank on the patriarchy, in which he tricked the school and Hemingway into lauding a story that was written by a girl.

The narrative jumps forward to the early 21st century. The narrator is now a successful author. The prep school invites him to return as a visiting writer, but he declines. The next spring, he runs into Mr. Ramsey, one of his former English teachers who is now the school’s headmaster. Mr. Ramsey tells the narrator a lengthy story related to his expulsion. Dean Makepeace was supposed to participate in the narrator’s expulsion but refused and resigned because he’d committed his own deception. Over the years, a rumor had emerged that Dean Makepeace was a friend of Hemingway’s. Though he never claimed this to be true, he’d allowed students and faculty to believe the rumor. Because of this perceived friendship, he was afforded greater respect from the campus community.

The year after resigning, Dean Makepeace was given his job back. In the novel’s closing scene, he returns to campus, where fellow faculty members enthusiastically welcome him home.